Everyday over 50,000 airplanes are guided safely through the air. The new air traffic control teams are becoming digitally savvy using more high tech software and tools to do their job more efficiently for the safety of all of us.

The air traffic control team works much like a software development team, where there are many defined roles, all very important to complete the mission.

For example, different types of air flight controllers take control of the flight throughout the planes journey to it's destination, from departure gate to arrival gate. (Think of the plane as an application) It is a very complex process just like the software development process.

Clearing each flight from the gate to the runway involves several steps and teams of people working together. The pilot calls for clearance and will receive clearance from the ground controller, who will take the pilot to the appropriate runway and will put the plane in line for take off. The ground controller will also manage any factors affecting the flight such as weather.

The local controller will take the aircraft and issue the "take off clearance", to get the pilot airborne. Once the aircraft is airborne, the tower control contacts departure control and the flight is handed off to Tracon, who's job it is to get the plane through all the other aircraft in the area, track the plane to it's flight cruising altitude, and onto it's destination. Then a regional air route center then takes control.

Oh by the way, there are project manager types managing all this. Sound familiar?

IBM Software tools serve as an air traffic control system for IT. Development teams like air traffic controllers need to use the most up to date efficient tools and team tools to provide security and safety. We all need to create a smarter planet in everything we do. As software developers there are some awesome development tools available to help us create this smarter planet through software. We need to work efficiently and smarter in our global software development teams, as we hand code over from one team to the other. The key thing is communication, just like the flight controllers. Using development tools that help us communicate to our team members better, will help us develop better quality software in less time.

Check out these demos on how teams can use development tools to improve the communication through the development process:

Change management with IBM Rational ClearQuest and ClearCase, Part 1

This demo shows you how to integrate IBM® Rational® ClearQuest® and ClearCase® into a integrated change management solution. The deployed Web banking application is tested for defects. Once the test manager discovers the defect, the manager walks through the submission process. The defect is reviewed and assigned to a developer (Alex in the demo) by the project manager. Once the defect is assigned to the developer, he works to resolve the defect utilizing IBM Rational Application Developer, ClearQuest, and ClearCase. This is the first of a two part demo series. Demo

Change management with IBM Rational ClearQuest and ClearCase, Part 2

This demo continues where part 1 left off. It follows the developer (Alex) as he works on resolving the defect submitted to him. Alex uses IBM Rational Application Developer with plug-ins for ClearQuest and ClearCase. First, you'll see Alex's to-do list that contains submitted high severity defects assigned to him. Next, Alex connects to the ClearCase server and changes the code to correct the defect. Then Alex verifies his changes by running the application within his IDE. Finally, Alex checks in his changes and transition the state of the defect from open to resolved using ClearQuest. This is the second of a two part demo series. Demo

If you think how small our world is and how enormous the task is to create a smarter planet, we really have to be smart about creating a smarter planet.

There is so much data that could be collected to help us understand the world better, in terms of health, trends in the environment, population growth and so on. For example, If all the doctors working on a cure for cancer had access to all the same information, those great minds could collectively work smarter and faster, and might just find a cure in our lifetime. But to help those doctors, the IT professionals need to create the software, that will provide the infrastructure, to collect and connect all the data.

To get an idea of just some surface data, that could go so much deeper, check out the

And for smart tools to help create a smarter plantet, check out this Optim demo thatshows how the staff at one fictional organization, the Great Outdoors Company, takes advantage of Optim solutions. Watch how this company gains more value from their business-critical Java applications by being able to: Accelerate problem determination for a misbehaving application; Accelerate performance of an existing application proactively, while at the same time improving stability and security; Accelerate development for a new application by improving productivity, reducing coding errors, and building in performance right from the start.

IBM® Rational® Focal Point™ provides market - and business-driven product and portfolio management - helping executives and teams to make the right decisions to deliver business, customer and market value.

Here are some highlights of Rational Focal Point, but don't forget to check out the demo below: Demo

- Capture inputs from customers, analysts, market research, and internal stakeholders and prioritize on which ones will provide the most value to the business.- Utilize visualization, prioritization, and unique road mapping and planning capabilities to ensure that plans are innovative, valuable and achievable.- Centralize information key to decision-making, status reporting and portfolio reviews to escape the chaos of managing data in emails, documents, and spreadsheets; speeding the ability to respond to changing market and business conditions.- Overcome the influence of the loudest voice in the room and use objective information to support decision making.- Reduce risk and improve cost estimations of investments by modeling financial and market impacts and by performing scenario, statistical and financial analysis.- Integrate enterprise architecture plans and project execution into portfolio management to ensure enterprise and project-level decisions are aligned with financial and market needs.- Quickly realize the benefits of Product and Portfolio Management and reduce costs of implementations by utilizing pre-defined configurations based on best practices.

Check out the demo and learn how IBM Rational Focal Point helps organizations achieve their overall company goals. Project portfolio management can be described as methods for analyzing and collectively managing a group of current or proposed projects based on numerous key characteristics. This demo explains how Rational Focal Point provides visibility into each project's total expected cost, consumption of resources, expected timeline, benefits to be realized, and relationship or inter-dependencies with other projects in the portfolio.

Check out the optional DB2 Performance Optimization Feature. It gives you the insight and ability to optimize workload execution. This feature can save you money and lower your risks by helping you to do more work with your existing hardware, and increase DBA productivity. Saving resources is a smart thing.

Performance optimization is very complex with many interdependent factors requiring deep skills. These skills are often hard to come by and typically very expensive. Problem isolation can take days and require many people across different domains and expertise. Add to this, the pressure on business today and the constant state of flux – hardware upgrades, software upgrades, application enhancements, new application deployment.

DB2 Workload Management using Performance Optimization FeatureSee how one fictional company uses DB2® Workload Management and Optim™ Performance Manager Extended Edition to allocate database system resources to help a high priority application achieve its business objectives in a data warehousing environment. These capabilities are conveniently packaged together in the DB2 Performance Optimization Feature.

Don't we love to see real world scenarios where software products help reduce costs and improve productivity.

In the energy and utilities sector, rising energy costs and technology advances are leading to more informed and involved utility customers. They want to know how much energy they are using, where they can optimize usage, and in some cases, how to implement their own renewable energy sources. This is all done through smart technologies including software.

Utilities are a critical link to improving energy efficiency, integrating renewable sources of energy and addressing climate change. IBM can add a layer of intelligence to your utility, using the power of information

From a business management perspective, IBM can also provide software, solution accelerators and best practices to help Energy and Utility companies reduce operating costs, accelerate deployment of intelligent network programs (like smart grids), provide energy management tools to consumers and limit security threats while reliably delivering electricity, gas or water.

And here is the demo...

In this example, see how Rational® Focal Point can be used in the energy and utilities sector, showing some of the major portfolio management challenges facing the industry. See how Focal Point meets those challenges by utilizing many of the monitoring, prioritization, and decision making capabilities featured in the solution.

This week I'll be talking about RAD and the runtime analysis feature, the debug tool and reverse transformations.

Within RAD, the runtime analysis feature allows you to view the actual execution of the code, which may be different from the intended behavior. With profiling, you can analyze performance, method execution sequences, thread behaviors and code coverage. With the Runtime Analysis feature, you can do: - Performance Analysis: users can collect method level performance data and view it through statistical views or via the performance call graph - Memory Leak Analysis: users can find memory leaks within their Java code. The leaks can be viewed using the Object Reference Graph to better explore relationships of the object to other objects. - Line Level Code Coverage: shows what code has been executed down to the line level. - Thread Analysis: within a view, thread-view of the behavior code is shown.

All runtime analysis instrumentation is specified via profile configurations (done through a wizard).

RAD provides a comprehensive debug tool. It is a Java and mixed language debugger - Seamless integration when debugging application that calls other languages from Java and vice versa.

It provides Advanced debug support for Websphere Application Server, including EJBs, JSP pages, and servlets. It controls debugging at a higher level and provides the user the ability to stop on entry to every object loaded by the JVM or server. The XSLT debugger enables you to detect and diagnose errors in XSLT Transformations and it displays variables in a logical manner, allowing the user to examine variables more easily.

In addition, RAD provides reverse transformations. It allows teams to work on both the design and the implementation and to reconcile any differences between the two. So for example,let’s say we have an architecture team and an implementation team that are divided, either by geography or because one team is subcontracting to the other, or even by corporate culture. The architecture team completes its version 1.0 of the system, and transforms the model to code.

The implementation team picks up the code and begins to work. The architecture team continues to work on the design, and after some time creates a v1.1 of the architecture. This architecture is forward transformed and integrated with the work done by the implementation team.

So far, so good?

Now, the implementation team introduces a significant deviation from the architecture developed by the architecture team. Here is where the reverse transformation or code-to-model transformation can be used. The implementation team performs the code-to-model transform. The architecture team can then compare/merge this model with the architecture model they are working with. Some changes could be accepted and others could be rejected. Once the reconciliation has occurred, a code-to-model transformation could be performed to conform the implementation with the newest architecture.

When the architectural deviation is introduced, a dialogue would need to take place between the architecture and implementation teams so that both teams could better understand why the deviation was introduced. The forward transformation that occurs after the reconciliation probably would not delete code elements if those code elements were not the product of forward transformation in the first place. The deletion of the code elements would often be done manually.

This demo shows a transfer scenario involving a Web application deployed on an IBM® Websphere® Application Server. It takes a look at parking debug sessions and how to transfer debug sessions through Sametime.

It is all about smart software development tools to help create a smarter planet.

IBM® Rational® DOORS® Web Access enables stakeholders across your organization immediate access to the latest project requirements and traceability relationships. Rational DOORS Web Access provides secure, zero-footprint access to the central DOORS repository to enable stakeholders such as business users, developers, QA, marketing, and suppliers to stay up-to-date with the latest project requirements -- across the project and around the world. Take a closer look at how DOORS Web Access provides clear visibility into requirements and traceability relationships using the DOORS desktop client.

"Fly by the seat of your pants" is an early aviation term when aircraft had few navigation aids and flying was accomplished by means of the pilot's judgment. The term emerged in the 1930s and was first widely used in reports of Douglas Corrigan's flight from the USA to Ireland in 1938.

That flight was reported in many US newspapers of the day 'Corrigan Flies By The Seat Of His Pants',

We all know that we can't fly by the seat of our pants in software development. There are so many tools today that help us make smarter software faster.

From use case development all the way to modeling, solution analysis, design activities and project management. And thank goodness that aircraft

This demo shows how to transform an IBM® Rational® Requirements Composer project into a model in IBM Rational Software Architect or IBM Rational Software Modeler.See how use cases and process flow requirements captured in IBM Rational Requirements Composer can be used as a basis for your solution analysis and design activities within Rational Software Architect or Rational Software Modeler.

Recently CNN had an interesting article on how identify theft is on the rise. CNN notes "hackers are working their way into the computer systems of major retailers across the country, experts say. As the bad guys get savvier, identity theft has become more common. Last year, the number of incidents of identity fraud in the United States increased 22%., according to the most recent survey by Javelin Strategy & Research."

As consumers, we can lower our risk by monitoring our credit reports, but we can only do so much. As application and web developers we need to take responsibility and develop secure web applications. Don't you think? Let's create a smarter more secure planet through software.

Has your identity been stolen? If it has, how did that make you feel? IBM Rational AppScan is doing a lot to help developers make web sites more secure.

Check out this demo "Introduction to Rational AppScan" This demo shows you how to scan a Web application for security vulnerabilities using Rational® AppScan® Standard Edition. This is one of our most popular demos. DEMO

Cloud computing can make a positive difference to your company's impact on the environment and provide unbounded scale and differentiated quality of service. Each physical server on your network consumes power, creates additional heat and requires constant cooling from air-conditioning systems. These costs can be reduced with Cloud computing. In addition, Cloud computing is a means of providing service delivery for consumer and business needs in a simplified way. Businesses are looking to cloud computing to provide the agility needed to respond quickly in today's highly competitive environment and an environment that scales easily to effectively meet customer needs.

So in a nutshell, the benefits of cloud computing are predictable any time, anywhere access to IT resources. flexible scaling of resources and a positive impact on the environment. Cloud computing can be smart computing.

Learn how to use the Amazon Web Services toolkit for Eclipse. This demo shows you how to create a simple Java™ Web application, hello world, and deploy it to the cloud. To complete the steps in this demo, you will need to have Eclipse installed and setup. You will also need to have an Amazon account.

Well, you might be saying - "All this talk about creating a smarter planet through software is great, but let's see some real world examples".

I'm glad you asked. We recently published two demos that demonstrate software in the financial industry.

The first example demonstrates IBM WebSphere ILOG Business Rule Management System (BRMS) JRules. With BRMS JRules, developers can easily build and deploy rule-based applications that automate fine-grained, variable decisions used by business systems, while reducing the time, effort and cost of application development and ongoing maintenance. The short of it is that you can build, manage and run rule-based applications for Java, mainframe and SOA. This is important in industries like the financial industry.

The second example uses Cognos Now!. This product delivers operational dashboards for real-time monitoring of key performance indicators (KPIs) and operational metrics from disparate data sources. The great thing is that these dashboards can be created by non-technical people, even a "manager".

It is all about saving money and being productive faster and hence, creating a smarter planet through software!

The first demo describes IBM WebSphere ILOG Business Rule Management System (BRMS) capabilities and how they can be applied in the financial market front office. Using a fictitious company named Open Financials, the demo shows you how to use JRules to handle the routing of orders and routing of order exception processing.

IBM WebSphere ILOG Business Rule Management System applied in the financial industry DEMO

In the second demo see how Cognos® Now! can be used by financial markets firms in an algorithmic trading scenario. This scenario is part of a project called Botticelli, which is focused on positioning a suite of IBM middleware within the financial markets front office. The benefits to using Cognos Now! include the ability to rapidly deploy applications in a cost effective manner, with the easy to use, self-service user interface, and the flexible architecture.

Internet and digital technologies are transforming the way we live and work today. New technologies are transforming how we share information, make relationships and make decisions.

It was just in the 1980's, when message centers still existed and businesses manually collected all telephone messages. We will skip the steps in between, like the answering machine, but now we have VOIP that sends our voicemail directly to our email inbox. We can be anywhere in the world, including at home by the pool and collect our telephone messages instantly, from our laptops or hand held devices.

Our global teams usually communicate through instant messaging. We Collaborate real time with each other for insights, information and answers. Your team member could be in Dublin while you live in Toronto. Instant information from 3000 miles away. You might just as well be in the office next door.

We are in a new era and it has only just begun. It will be software development teams, who will continue to transform and create this Smarter Planet through software. All business processes, hidden knowledge and services will become digital for quick access, to make faster and more effective decision making, Innovation will thrive and lives will be saved. Social software will allow us to find people with areas of expertise outside of our immediate teams, who will also provide us information to make the best decisions and blossom new innovation.

Creating a Smarter Planet isn't going to be exactly easy, but it will be a lot faster and development teams will be a lot smarter and effective if they have the right software development tools. Using development tools that provide communication for global teams, that automate project status and efficiently track progress of the project, will help us build better quality software faster.

Learn how IBM® Rational® DOORS® not only enhances communication and collaboration through increased visibility of business objectives and technical specifications, but also ensures your project’s conformance to customer requirements, and compliance with regulations and standards. IBM Rational DOORS is a requirements management solution optimized for the needs of systems engineering, product development and enterprise I.T., with capabilities to capture, link, trace, analyze, and manage changes to requirements. Take a closer look at how DOORS can help you deliver exactly what you agreed to build, on time, and within budget.

Modeling lets you manage complexity and risk. Not all projects require models in order to be successful. The more complex a project is, the more you need models. Software is no different than every other kind of engineering in this respect. You probably don’t need to create a model before putting together a doghouse. It’s not very complex, and if the doghouse fails, i.e. falls apart, the consequences are not too dire – the dog stays in the big house. But, as we move up in complexity and look at building a family dwelling or even a high-rise office building, the need to model is more important, as these buildings are much more complex than a doghouse, and the consequences of these buildings failing are more serious.

There are many reasons to model…here are some of them.

- manage complexity

- detect errors and omissions early in the lifecycle- communicate with stakeholders- understand requirements- drive implementation- understand the impact of change- ensure that resources are deployed efficiently

Communication is the biggest benefit of modeling.

The best models represent different viewpoints of the same system. This isn’t just nice to have, it’s a necessity. Different stakeholders in a system will be interested in different viewpoints. Creating good models that ensure all stakeholders understand what they need to understand about the system is critical to success.

You need to use modeling to control the application architecture and to use a tool that uses the common language of modeling, UML. The solution should provide a way for geographically distributed teams to access the models. You want a tool that provides transformation capabilities, to aid with model-driven development. And the solution should help you create and enforce the rules of your architecture, by providing guidance on the development process you are using. This allows you to visually compare changes to models, and linking requirements to the design you are creating.

The IBM Rational product that provides this solution is IBM Rational Software Modeler. IBM Rational Software Modeler (Software Modeler) supports UML notation. It has a simplified user interface which makes it quite easy to use. Software Modeler is built on Eclipse, so it is extensible and it integrates with other Eclipse development environments. And of course it integrates with other IBM Rational products.

This demo shows how to transform an IBM® Rational® Requirements Composer project into a model in IBM Rational Software Architect or IBM Rational Software Modeler. See how use cases and process flow requirements captured in IBM Rational Requirements Composer can be used as a basis for your solution analysis and design activities within Rational Software Architect or Rational Software Modeler.

It is cool when you can see industry examples of how software can improve your companies productivity and cost savings through software.

I worked with the Rational Focal Point team, to publish a demo discussing some of the major portfolio management challenges facing municipalities and demonstrating how Focal Point can meet those challenges, by utilizing many of the monitoring, prioritization, and decision making capabilities featured in the solution. Whether you manage a city, a company or an organization, you will need to prioritize projects and understand the return on investment each project will provide you, which can be extremely challenging, if you don't have the proper tools.

There are many other challenges and details to managing a portfolio of projects. Ideas for new investments or cost-cutting measures come from a variety of sources and most cities or companies don’t have a single repository where those ideas can be gathered and carried through a defined lifecycle. Without such a repository you run the risk of having great ideas fall through the cracks.

In lean times resources become limited. In these cases being alerted about budget overruns, scheduling delays, and resource bottlenecks as soon as possible is critical. Many cities or companies cannot generate the simple, real-time overviews that help managers quickly pinpoint trouble spots and address them in the earliest stages.

Presented here are a few of those challenges that the Focal Point solution has been designed to address—hopefully many of them look familiar to you.

Software is key to creating a smarter planet and here is a fine Industry example! Check out the demo!

This demo uses a government industry scenario to show some of the major portfolio management challenges facing municipalities. See how IBM® Rational® Focal Point can meet those challenges by utilizing many of the monitoring, prioritization, and decision making capabilities featured in the solution.

The JRules Business Rule Management System helps create a smarter planet

BRMS or Business Rule Management System (BRMS) is a software system used to define, deploy, execute, monitor and maintain the variety and complexity of decision logic that is used by operational systems within an organization or enterprise. This logic is also referred to as business rules. It includes policies, requirements, and conditional statements, that are used to determine the tactical actions that take place in applications and systems.

-Tools, allowing both technical developers and business experts to define and manage decision logic

-A runtime environment, allowing applications to invoke decision logic managed within the BRMS and execute it using a business rules engine

As IBM continues to help organizations and enterprises build a smarter planet through software, the WebSphere ILOG JRules BRMS family can't go unnoticed as part of the smarter planet software solutions. It is designed for easy, safe and reliable management of decision logic that drives business systems. It is also designed to fit a wide range of enterprise architectures, it empowers both LOB and IT teams, and facilitates communication and collaboration between all rule management stakeholders. In addition, JRules BRMS accelerates time-to-market and lowers total cost of ownership through four key items:

-Collaborative rule management for business teams

-Comprehensive application development and deployment for IT teams

-Superior decision governance for business and IT users

-Robust, scalable and managed rule execution

Lowering cost of ownership, improving communication within teams and accelerating time to market are key items of creating a smarter planet through software!

Check out these two JRules demos to get more information on it's capabilities.

Learn how the WebSphere ILOG JRules Business Rules Management System (JRules BRMS) can automate decision making for data validation, eligibility and pricing in a real-world scenario. This demo shows how JRules BRMS allows organizations to gain a competitive advantage by adapting business systems to evolve with changing business policies and decisions.

Learn how technical users can import an external object model in the WebSphere ILOG JRules Rule Studio development environment. The demo also shows how to use the imported object model to write business rules.